


Revenge in Tens

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Series: Legs 'Verse [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:56:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Lee is a horrible school project partner, John is angry, and his friends try to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revenge in Tens

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my brother's birthday- here's the Charles Lee you requested!*
> 
> (AND LOOK AT HOW CLEVER I AM THE WORD COUNT IS 1717)
> 
> Takes place in the same 'verse as "A Graceful Turn of the Leg," but you don't need to have read that to read this.
> 
> (Edit: I apologize for coming back in and making so many fussy edits this morning. This is what happens when you decide it's a good idea to post something at 2am)

“Alex, I am going to murder someone and you’re going to have to cover for me.” John Laurens' tone is light and cheery, but with a sharp edge to it that suggests that he's not actually joking. He plops into the seat next to Alex, a smile forced onto his freckled face.

Alex looks up from his sandwich. “Who is it this time?”

“Charles Lee,” John says, and begins irritably throwing his lunch on the table. Yogurt, apple, granola bar. “I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to murder him.” His curly ponytail bounces with emotion.

“Awesome!” Alex says. 

“What is?” Eliza takes the seat on Alex’s other side.

“John’s going to murder Charles Lee.”

“Seriously?”

John nods solemnly. “Probably today or tomorrow."

"What's today or tomorrow?" Hercules asks, appearing next to John. 

"I'm going to murder-" John starts, before Eliza interrupts him. 

"Maybe we should wait until everyone gets here."

John sighs and bangs his head on the table, but she's got a point.

Eventually, the whole gang shows up. Lafayette is distressed to hear that murder plans have been going on without him. Alex doesn't care where the plans came from, he just wants in. Peggy starts muttering "fight, fight, fight," under her breath. Adrienne says “how about not murder.” Hercules steals John's lunch to see how long it takes him to notice. Aaron rests his face in his hands and complains "it's only Monday..." to no one in particular. 

"Okay," Angelica says, "but why are you murdering him again?"

"Two words," John says. "Group. Project."

There is an understanding chorus of "ohhhhhhhhhh" from the table at large. 

"First," John says loudly, "he flopped back and forth about what we'd be doing our biome presentation on. I said "let's present on the swamp," and he was like "sure," and then he was like "how about the tundra" and I was like "whatever" and then we got the _savannah_ somehow, I have no idea."

"Second, we met yesterday and the day before to work on it and he spent the whole time complaining about the class. He did absolutely nothing and I was just about ready to punch him right then and there."

"Okay," Adrienne says, "I'm here for the punching."

"Good call," Peggy agrees.

"I haven't even gotten to today," John says. "Because today we have time to work in class and he. Isn't. Here."

"Oh shit," Alex says. "Murder it is."

"He probably just had something come up," Aaron says tiredly, and unexpectedly. "Maybe he's sick."

"He looked fine yesterday," Alex counters.

"Maybe he hurt himself."

"Isn't that a nice thought."

Aaron sighs. "All I'm saying is don't condemn him until you know his side of the story. Especially because you're _going_ to get in trouble."

"Or we could murder him!!" John says, slamming his hands on the table. "Hey, where'd my yogurt go?"

Hercules snickers and returns John's lunch, and Alex pulls out a notebook and starts scribbling. 

Eventually, Angelica tries to talk some sense into them. "You know, murder is really hard to get away with. Especially for you, especially once you've been shouting about it in the cafeteria."

"I could just punch him," John mutters.

"There's another problem," Eliza says.

"What?"

"He's not in school today."

John swears loudly. 

—

 _10-step plan for bringing destruction and ruin on Charles Lee_  
_(As soon as he gets back to school)_  
_by Alexander Hamilton_

_1\. Meet with him and see if he'll apologize first (a likely story)._

_2\. Tell me (A. Ham) what he says._

_3\. If he doesn’t apologize and promise to do his share of the work, tell Charles you're gonna meet him after school. He's got Anime club sometimes. After that would be a good time._

_4\. Eliza is going to be there to stop it if you start losing._

_5\. Keep him in the hallway until it's empty and there are no witnesses_

_6\. Lafayette, Hercules, Peggy, and Adrienne will keep watch_

_7\. I'm going to take a video so you can see how badass you look. Also you should look into the camera and say something deep like "the failure of the public school system is what drove me to this" so we can put it on the internet and start a national discourse about the problems inherent in high-stakes testing..._

_8\. Punch him in the face._  
_NO (A. Burr)_  
_YES (A. Ham)_  
_Maybe ask him if he's reconsidered (A. Burr)_  
_Hah! Yeah right. (A. Ham)._  
_You suck. (A. Burr)_

 _9\. Look him in the eye, aim no higher, summon all the courage you require…_  
_We get it Laf, you're taking poetry this semester_

 _10\. THEN punch his lights out!!!!_  
_But don't actually murder him._  
_Then run._

—

Alex and John see no problems with the plan, (except for the parts Aaron Burr wrote in when he stole the notebook). Luckily, their friends know better.

“Not gonna happen,” Eliza says, looking it over.

“But what if it does?” Alex counters wittily.

“ _No._ ”

Alex looks to Angelica, who is usually on his side when it comes to important things like this. She’s also shaking her head. So are Hercules and Adrienne, for that matter, and Burr has put in his headphones and seems to be trying to pretend none of this is happening.

So, even though Peggy and Lafayette’s eyes still say _“go for it!!”_ Alex is forced to bite his lip and turn to John.

“He still needs to get his ass kicked,” John insists. He is a bit less afraid of Angelica than Alex is.

“Oh, he will,” Hercules promises. “Just not in a way that’s going to get you suspended.”

“It would be for a good cause!”

_“No.”_

Eliza tears Alex’s list into several pieces, and that is the end of that.  
—

 _Alternate ideas for making Charles Lee pay without ACTUAL violence_  
_By Alexander Hamilton_  
_With suggestions by other people_

_1) Punch him anyway (John)_

_2) Talk to the teacher about him (Eliza)_  
_But this is so BORING_

_3) Do all the work anyway and then don’t put his name on the final product (Adrienne)_

_4) Hire a hit-man to hurt him instead (I don’t know where) (Lafayette)_

_5) Write an article for the school paper about how awful he is (ME (A. Ham))_

_6) Write an article for the school paper passive-aggressively attacking people who don’t pull their weight (Angelica)_

_7) Have John and Charles meet to work on their project in the main office when the PA system is on so everyone in the school can hear everything (Peggy)_

_8) Do nothing (GUESS WHO THIS COULD POSSIBLY BE)_

_9) Get Madison to be mad at him because seriously that kid can be scary when he wants to be (Adrienne)_

_10) Have Hercules hack into Charles Lee’s email account and send an email to the teacher telling him that John is not a good partner and that John and Thomas Jefferson should switch partners. It would be more fair to everybody that way and the awful people could be together. (Hercules)_

_Verdict: #10!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_—_

Hercules is pretty good at hacking. He says he just picked it up somewhere and point-blank refuses to teach Alex how to do it, but when he, Alex, John, and Eliza meet in the computer lab after school, it just takes him a few minutes to get into Charles Lee’s email, chlee@kinghs.edu, through the back.

“THIS IS SO COOL,” Alex whisper-shouts. John claps his hand over Alex’s mouth.

“MMGHGMGMMG” Alex muffle-whisper-shouts anyway.

“Wow,” Hercules says. “He’s getting a lot of emails from Pinterest.”

“What are they about?” John asks.

Hercules spends a few minutes clicking around. “Motivational things… Hetalia… S’mores recipes…” he reports. “Here’s the one John sent him this morning. And it looks like he read it.” The email reads _AHHHHHHH WHERE ARE YOU WHAT ARE YOU DOING_.

“ _Seriously?_ He didn’t reply!” John is furious.

“And then there are a few emails about grades and assignments…”

“What are those?” Alex asks.

“None of your business,” Eliza says. She turns to Hercules. “May I?”

“All yours.” Hercules rolls his chair away from the computer, and Eliza pulls up the next one and takes a seat.

By popular consensus, the group had agreed that Eliza should write the note in the first place. John was too likely to write something like “I, CHARLES LEE, AM A DIPSHIT” and send it without proofreading, and Alex was too likely to write twenty seven paragraphs which amounted to the same thing, and send it without proofreading. Hercules was too likely to proofread, replace “dipshit” with “asswipe” and then hit send. As Angelica has pointed out, none of these were particularly useful to the cause.

“ _Hello,_ ” Eliza says, speaking aloud as she types. “ _I had a request regarding the biome project you assigned last week.”_

“That sounds so formal,” Alex interrupts.

“Not everyone sends their teachers emails that entirely consist of emojis,” Hercules points out. Granted, Alex usually only does that to Mr. Washington, (but note the word “usually”).

_“I’m paired with John Laurens and it turns out we don’t work well together.”_

Alex interrupts again. “Because John’s too smart for him.”

“Because I’ve been doing all the work!!”

_“Part of this is due to personal differences. He is worried about this project and as you can tell, I have had to miss some school. I don’t know if this is fair to him.”_

“It’s not.”

“Well I know that.” Eliza clears her throat and keeps typing. _“I think I’d be much better off working with Thomas Jefferson. John can work Jefferson’s partner. I’m sure Jefferson won’t mind- I’m pretty sure he hasn’t started his own project yet.”_

_Thank you_

_Charles Lee”_

Eliza looks up at the others. “How does that sound?”

“Awesome,” Hercules says.

“One emoji,” Alex says.

“Are you sure he can’t insult himself?” John asks.

Eliza proofreads the email and then hits send. She logs out of the computer and turns around to high-five everyone. “We nailed this.”

—  
During third period, when John has APES, the entire group gets a text.

John: [IT WORKED]

—

Alex texts John at lunch, after the period is halfway over and there’s still no sign of him.

Alex: [Hey, where are you?]

He gets a response quickly

John: [Hit CL anyway]  
John: [In Ppal’s office now]  
John: [No regrets :) ]

**Author's Note:**

> *even though apparently Lee doesn't actually show up... oops
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores


End file.
